We were outnumbered, not by a lot, but enough to sway the odds. If it turned into a gun fight, lives would be lost.

“Forty,” I offered. “I’ll give forty million dollars to the first person to hit the bull’s-eye.”

“He’s bluffing!” Vito shouted! A vein pulsated across his forehead. “He’s a lying prick! The Abandonatos stole my son!” He began pacing. “I just want him back! All I want is my son back, and I’ll leave. I’ll leave! No more killing. My old heart, it just can’t—”

“Lies,” Tex spat, pushing away from the chair and approaching his father. “Say my name.”

“No.”

“Afraid of a little curse?”

“For the last time, it is not real!”

“Vito Nicio Campisi, Junior,” a female voice said from behind me. It was too late before I realized it was Mil. I yelled as Vito raised his gun, directing it at her head. She stood firm.

The warehouse doors burst open again, and what can only be described as a miracle took place, as men I’d never seen before in my life poured in. Most of them looked like they’d seen better days. But there were sixty of them. And they were heavily armed.

“Hey, Joe.” Mil shrugged. “What took you so long?”

“Oh, you know.” He cocked his gun. “Vegas traffic.”

“No!” Vito fired.

Chase yelled and ran in Mil’s direction then fell to the ground in a heap. More gunshots rang out. I ran toward Trace, but paused when she pulled out her own gun and started firing at Vito’s men.

I hated how turned on I was at the sight.

Within seconds, it was all over with. No lives lost on our side — at least… not yet.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chase

I’d always wondered what it would be like — to sacrifice yourself so another person could live. It wasn’t like I was morbid or anything, but in my line of work it was just a daily reality. You don’t work for the mafia and not think about it. Death was at your door constantly. Shit, it practically camped there.

I just thought it would come knocking a little bit later in life, you know? Every muscle in my body tensed as the second gunshot rang out.

Funny, how at the end of your life, you think about the beginning. Even crazier? It was her smile that had first attracted me to her. The way her entire face lit up, the way her eyes said she’d eat me alive if I didn’t watch it. Damn, but so many things had changed over the course of a few weeks.

I don’t even know how it happened, how she’d maneuvered her way into my soul, how she’d made it so that I was overcome with madness for her — a type of obsession that I never wanted to be done with. She had destroyed me, and in my destruction, I’d found my salvation.

I touched my chest and examined my fingers. My blood was wet and sticky. Slowly, I fell to my knees. I heard shouting around me but it seemed to come from far away. A foreign grunt came from my lips as my body slumped against the ground. Nixon came running, then Trace, and finally her, my tough as shit, Mil.

My wife.

And now… a widow.

“I’m s-sorry.” My breaths were coming in sharp, as if there was too much pressure on my lungs to breathe. Every gasp hurt like the fires of hell. I was getting choked by the pressure in my chest, pushing and tearing, just waiting to pull me into the fiery pit.

“Don’t talk. You’re going to be fine, Chase, you have to be fine!” Mil pressed her hand hard over mine. Tears splashed onto my chest — her tears. “Damn it, Chase! Fight!’

“It’s not cold…” I sighed happily as the pain started to dissipate leaving me in a state of shock. “It’s so warm.” And it was. Death was warm, not cold as I’d always thought.

Mil slapped me hard across the cheek. “And it’s gonna get hotter than hell if you don’t listen to me. You have to fight, Chase Winter. I refuse to live without you.”

“Okay.” I smiled. I would have probably rolled my eyes too but moving anything more seemed too much of an effort. She would be fine. She was a fighter, after all. “Love you…” And then I succumbed to the blackness of my warm death. At least I knew, in those last few seconds, that for once in my life, I would have done nothing different.

Because every damn road had led me to her.

“Chase!” Something pounded on my chest. Shit, that hurt. I blinked a few times, thinking I’d really lost my mind when my wife stood over me without a shirt on, clad only in her bra and jeans, holding something to my side. Damn, my side hurt — and my chest. It felt like someone was sitting on it.

“Move,” another voice said.

“But he’ll bleed out!” Nixon snapped.

Damn right! I wanted to shout. Listen to Nixon! It’s not a flesh wound! I felt my body weakening from blood loss.

“I’m a doctor,” Joe snapped.

I would have laughed had I had the energy.

The room fell silent, or at least it felt like it.

Joe, or whoever he was, grabbed something and wrapped it around my leg; it was so tight I winced, or I think I winced. And then he started talking in Sicilian about alcohol and something else about lifting my body and not letting me stand because then I would bleed out. Wow, thanks genius, I appreciated that.

“Shit!” I wailed.

Oh, wow! So I wasn’t dead. I was able to yell. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” Let’s not over-do it. “Damn it!” My body hurt like hell. I’d been shot before, but never like this. What the hell type of poison did that man dip his bullets into? It felt like my body was getting ripped apart.

“We can’t take him to a hospital.” Nixon looked freaked.

Should I be freaked too?

I blinked a few times and mouthed, “It’s okay.” Or at least I think I did.

Joe snorted. “Some of us don’t live and breathe the mafia and have to make a living somehow, you asses.”

I wanted to give him a high five but figured it would probably be the death of me — literally.

Somehow, I was floating in the air. Oh shit, just don’t go into the light. I almost puked as I was carried into a car. I nearly shit my pants when the lights turned on because I thought I was getting called home. It didn’t help that the heater was blasting so it felt like the fires of hell were licking my heels, just waiting for me with bated breath.

“Hold on,” Mil whispered near my ear. “Please, Chase, please God, just hold on, can you do that?”

“Yes,” I whispered hoarsely. “Love you, Mil.”

“Love you too.” And then she leaned down and whispered in my ear. “My savior.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Tex

He was dead.

My father was dead.

And my best friend was getting a hands-on demonstration of why the game of Operation was scary as hell.

“How are you holding up?” Nixon asked, handing me a cup of coffee. Chase had been in surgery for four hours already. Somehow my bastard of a father had missed his first shot at Mil, but had succeeded in hitting Chase three times. Once in the lower back, dangerously close to his kidneys, one through the side, and another through the left shoulder. Had it been any closer to his heart, and he would have died instantly.

“I’m fantastic.” I took the coffee. “Just another day in paradise.”

“Please don’t start singing.” He sat down next to me. “I’d probably end up punching you in the face.”

“Sorry…” I muttered. “…lover.”

“Do you ever quit?”

“No.” I sighed. “I’m cursed for a reason.”

“You aren’t cursed.” Nixon swore. “You just talk so much I want to put duct tape over your mouth.”

“Sure came in handy during my captivity.”

“Did you… um…” Nixon lowered his voice as Mil looked over at us with tear-stained eyes. “…find out any more information?”

“Not from Vito.” I couldn’t call him father now. Not even in my head. He’d almost killed my best friend. Besides, it was unfair to give him the respect of that name when his own son was the person who had pulled the trigger.